Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang, has convened a meeting of the State Security Council to review recent attacks and killings in the state and strengthen measures to prevent further violence. The meeting, held on Wednesday at the New Government House, Little Rayfield, Jos, followed a series of deadly attacks in parts of the state, including the killing of residents in Mangu and security personnel in Riyom.
According to Daily Trust, the meeting reviewed emerging security threats, intelligence gathering and sharing, preventive operations, inter-agency cooperation and measures to protect lives, property and economic activities across the state. The Commissioner of Police in Plateau, Ayodeji Faniyan, said after the meeting that security agencies had arrested suspects in connection with some of the major attacks recorded in the state in the past month.
Mr Faniyan said investigations were ongoing to identify and apprehend other persons linked to the attacks. “Governor Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang is the Chief Security Officer of the State, and once in a while, we review the security situation. We assess the security situation in order to take steps to improve on what we already have,” he said, according to Daily Trust. “The Mangu case was very unfortunate.
We prepared and deployed, but somehow, such incidents still occurred. That is part of why His Excellency called this meeting so that such incidents must not happen again.” The meeting came about two weeks after an attack on Bin Mper community in Mangu Local Government Area in which at least 24 people were reported killed.
The attack occurred in the early hours of 18 August, with residents reporting that gunmen moved from house to house and attacked people in their homes. Amnesty International subsequently condemned the killings and called for an investigation into the security lapses that allowed the attackers to operate.